The Giuliani Papers

God Hates New York

Josh Marshall with a TPM video on the Pat Robertson-9/11-Giuliani thing:

Rudy's outraged that Ron Paul says US foreign policy caused 9/11; but he's fine with Pat Robertson who chalks it up to gays and women who get abortions. We bring you the details in today's episode of TPMtv ...

Video here.

Rudy Loves Pat

Asked about Robertson's infamous rant about America deserving the 9/11 attacks because of abortion and gay people Giuliani evaded answering. (Whodathunkit?)

Steve Benen has more:

I’ve been anxiously awaiting the point at which Rudy Giuliani is asked why he’d embrace a crazed TV preacher who blamed Americans for 9/11. The State’s John O’Connor has the story. (via Greg Sargent)

Giuliani defended Robertson’s past controversies, including statements after the Sept. 11 attacks that God was “lifting his protection” because the U.S. was allowing abortion and removed prayer and the Ten Commandments from public schools.

“I think the comments he explained a long time ago,” Giuliani said. “I’ve had to explain lots of comments of mine.”

OK, now we’re getting somewhere. The Republican presidential hopeful running on a 9/11 platform is perfectly comfortable with Pat Robertson’s anti-American lunacy because Robertson “explained” his comments “a long time ago.”

I happen to know quite a bit about this — I covered the controversy closely six years ago — and what Giuliani said is simply wrong. Robertson never offered an “explanation” for his sedition. Indeed, he still hasn’t.

Pat Loves Rudy

Gail Collins' column today in The Times:

Pat Loves Rudy

By GAIL COLLINS

Published: November 8, 2007

Back in mid-2001, when Mayor Rudy Giuliani was busy committing adultery, lurching into his divorce and third marriage and rooming with a gay couple he promised to marry as soon as the law allowed, who among us would have imagined that one day he would be endorsed for president by Pat Robertson?

Truly, Sept. 11 changed everything.

Actually, Robertson, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, has had peculiar positions on the terror attack. He once said it was nowhere near as big a deal as the problem of judicial activism, and on another occasion he explained that the destruction of the World Trade Center was God’s punishment for abortion and “rampant secularism” on television. It’s hard to understand what drew the two men together. Rudy has hedged his positions on quite a few issues lately — but he has yet to suggest that New York had it coming.

It’s been quite a busy time for Giuliani, who recently tried to establish himself as the toughest dude on the anti-terror block by making fun of torture victims, drawing the wrath of John (Actually Tortured) McCain. Let it be known that nothing, including the extensive evidence that prisoners being tortured confess to things that aren’t true, is going to stop a President Giuliani from wringing every last drop of inaccurate information out of the evildoers.

“They talk about sleep deprivation. I mean on that theory, I’m getting tortured running for president of the United States. That’s plain silly,” he said at a town hall meeting in Iowa. You would really think after all the trouble Mitt Romney got for equating life in the Mitt Mobile with service in Iraq, people would be a little careful about comparing the perils of the campaign trail with military service. It also gave McCain the opportunity to remind the nation that Rudy got a deferral from serving in Vietnam by convincing his boss, a federal judge, to pull strings and have him declared an “essential” civilian employee for his critical work as a law clerk.

But we digress.

Robertson’s backing will surely give Giuliani a leg up among voters who believe that God sends natural disasters to punish Americans whose school board members believe in the theory of evolution, or who have the bad luck to live near an inclusive amusement park. (He warned Orlando that when Disney World welcomed gay patrons it was letting them in for terrorist attacks, “earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.”)

Yesterday, Robertson said that America’s Mayor had won him over because “to me, the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the bloodlust of Islamic terrorists.” (So much for judicial activism.) “Our second goal should be the control of massive government waste and crushing federal deficits.”

Now this is the part that I have never been able to get. When did government spending become part of the divine agenda? Is there something in the Bible about smiting down federal bureaucrats?

Even within the ranks of the social conservatives, Robertson is regarded as a tad over the top. Who among us will forget the time he claimed that the special protein shake he was marketing had enabled him to leg-press 2,000 pounds? Or the time he said God had given Ariel Sharon a massive stroke because he let the Palestinians run Gaza? (He did apologize for saying the United States should assassinate the president of Venezuela.)

Still, the endorsement must have been a blow to Mitt Romney. He has gotten a couple of social conservatives on his side. But given the way he’s prostrated himself before the right wing, renouncing every position he’s ever held, all the way down to stem cells, you’d think he’d do better. It’s a mystery why even someone as loopy as Robertson would pass up the exhaustingly virtuous family man for a longtime hound dog like Rudy, who has been qualifying his liberal social positions but never really retracting them.

“Persuasion is an important part of politics. It may be for some leaders, Giuliani is more persuasive, particularly in private,” suggested John Green, who studies conservative religious movements for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

It does seem true that miraculous things happen when conservative leaders meet with Giuliani behind closed doors. Maybe they just find Mitt Romney extremely irritating. Maybe Rudy has a secret grip, like the Vulcan mind-meld or one of those sleeper holds they used to have in professional wrestling, that fills his victims with an irrational degree of trust. Or maybe his leadership is so powerful that people exposed to it find it impossible to doubt the sincerity of his every word.

In which case I’ve got a protein shake I’d like to sell you.

Robertson's Ghost

Will Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy prove counterproductive for "America's Fuehrer"?

Robertson might actually be too crazy for the "mainstream" christian crazies:

In an interview with Election Central, a top official at the Family Research Council, one of the most prominent religious-conservative groups in the country, suggested that Rudy's acceptance of Robertson's endorsement should make one wonder whether Rudy agrees with Robertson's interpretation of the event that killed nearly 3,000 of Rudy's constitutents and now forms the basis of his campaign.

"9/11 is what Rudy's campaign is fundamentally based on," Charmaine Yoest, a vice president at Family Research Council Action, told us. "This does beg the question -- does Rudy agree with Robertson's comments about 9/11?"

A Few Questions About Robertson for Rudy

Steve Benen suggests a thread for reporters to follow on Robertson's Giuliani endorsement:

Indeed, I think the more meaningful trend to watch here is whether Robertson’s support actually becomes a hindrance for Giuliani. The former NYC mayor is cozying up to someone most reasonable people find to be stark raving mad.

Ideally, reporters would start to ask Giuliani about whether he agrees with some of the comments made by his buddy. For example, on Sept. 13, 2001, 48 hours after the Twin Towers fell, Robertson said Americans “deserved” to be attacked. Does Giuliani agree with this? If not, why is he trumpeting Robertson’s endorsement as a major development?

For that matter, Robertson believes the U.S. federal judiciary is more dangerous than “a few bearded-terrorists who fly into buildings.” Does Giuliani have any problem with that?

Robertson told a national television audience a couple of years ago that he’d like to see terrorists hit the State Department headquarters in DC. Does Giuliani find that to be an acceptable comment in our public discourse?

Robertson has said mainline Protestant denominations are “the spirit of the Anti-Christ,” and insisted that he has the ability to move hurricanes with his mind. Is Giuliani comfortable with all of this?

God Endorses Giuliani (But Won't Let Him Take Communion)

Even though Giuliani is not allowed to take the Catholic sacraments because of his most recent divorce and civil (not religious) marriage, there are Gods out there who want him to be president.

So Pat Robertson endorsed him today. Robertson gave as his main reason for the endorsement:

To me, the overriding issue before the American people is the defense of our population from the blood lust of Islamic terrorists.

Giuliani and the Right

Frank Rich and The Times were all over the supposed decline of the most rabidly politicized religious right.

The Times magazine described the disillusionment of evangelicals with Bush Republicanism, which provides the reason why Giuliani is a "viable" candidate among these "values voters" despite his "moderate" views on "abortion," "gay rights" and "gun control." (See previous post.)

Rich went over some of the same territory, but he began the journey on Memory Lane, reminding us of the halcyon summer of 2001, before EVERYTHING CHANGED FOREVER. He recalls a column he wrote about the warm and fuzzy Rudolph Giuliani that was published in The Times on August 4, two days before the August 6, 2001, President's Daily Briefing that told Bush that "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

Back then, even Frank Rich saw soothing signs of kumbaya emerging from the mouth of Dick Cheney:

Most intriguing of all are the latest visible fault lines in the usual conservative American antipathy -- most of it in Mr. Giuliani's party -- to gay unions. The shift became visible when Dick Cheney, debating Joe Lieberman during the campaign, said that he was wrestling ''with the extent of which there ought to be legal sanction of [gay] relationships,'' adding, ''I think we ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into.''

Is it a sign of "moderation" that the fundies are ready to accept Giuliani as a candidate? It's a "story" lots of pundies clearly want to flog, including Rich.

But I don't get it.

And, in the end, Frank can't leave without covering his ass:

“You have absolutely nothing to fear from me,” Rudy disingenuously told the assembled at the Values Voter Summit last weekend. Actually, there’s plenty for everyone to fear from a Giuliani presidency, starting with the mad neocon bombers shaping his apocalyptic policy toward Iran. But that’s another story.

That's where he's wrong. It's the same story.

Why Giuliani Won't Lose the Fundies

Alex Koppelman in Salon makes my point from yesterday. If the Christos abandon Giuliani for a third party the Republicans have ZERO chance in 2008. With Giuliani they have a candidate who can at least SEEM to compete.

If a third-party conservative entered the race, a Giuliani candidacy really would redraw the electoral map. But that realignment would favor Clinton, not Giuliani, and make her presidency a virtual fait accompli.

Giuliani and the Fundies

In anticipation of this weekend's crazy Christian "Values Voters Summit" in DC, everybody's talking about the likelihood of a third party challenge to Rudy from Dobson etc. From Josh Marshall, to Steve Benen, to Ezra Klein to, for balance, Robert Novak, there seems to be consensus that yes, a Giuliani candidacy would be intolerable for the Christos and, in turn, that a rupture between the GOP "establishment" and the religious "fringe" is inevitable. This schism, some say, could also result in a rush to Romney from the fundies instead of a third candidate. (Bob Jones University has alreay endorsed Romney.)

I don't understand this at all.

For nearly a year now, every TV bloviator has been predicting that it was only a matter of time before Giuliani's so-called "liberal positions" would be discovered by "values voting" Republicans and derail his nomination. When that didn't happen, the story shifted to one where, when Fred Thompson with his "bona fides" announces, the starving conservative masses will surge to suck on the Thompson teat. That didn't happen either.

Everybody knows what Giuliani thinks about everything. And Giuliani still leads the Republican field now, as he has, without interruption, for many months. It is also clear that Giuliani is the only Republican with half a chance to beat Hillary. That is not going to change, barring the discovery that Rudy has married his daughter.

So why in the world would Dobson etc. blow the only chance to retain power (even if they have to share it with "moderates") by splitting the party?

They wouldn't and they won't.

Much of the third-party opinion seems based on assuming that the fundies have a moral center that cannot be compromised by someone with Giuliani's views. For this they will choose unsullied defeat over tainted victory.

Wrong.

The whole "controversy" is a pantomime put on to assuage their craziest members that they are putting Giuliani's feet to the fire, or face to the waterboard, to obtain his pledge of allegiance.

The religious right knows they have Giuliani in their pocket, just as Giuliani knows he has them. The Christo-Fascists know that Rudy will allow Roe v Wade to be whittled away to a meaningless bit of nostalgia. They also know Rudy's "views" on "gay rights" and "civil unions" pose no threat to actually encouraging either.

It's all a show. I'm surprised the progressive bloggers don't see this.